Google Apps vs. Office 365: An Objective Perspective

Earlier this month, BetterCloud wrote an article about how Google will win the Enterprise game when it comes to Google Apps vs. Microsoft Office 365. Four reasons were cited declaring Google Apps the winner:

1. A generational shift wherein students coming out of university are already using Gmail and other Google products in their personal lives. Thus, Google Apps will be the preferred system in the corporate setting when this cohort assumes management control.
2. Microsoft’s long-standing involvement with on-premise solutions and channel partners who push on-premise solutions, which will slow the necessary shift in Redmond’s core business operations to the cloud.
3. Microsoft’s preference for complicated pricing scares off buyers, whereas Google has a much simpler pricing plan.
4. Google’s competitive advantage with regards to timing as they came to the market just as web apps were coming out, while Microsoft is dealing with 20+ years of providing on-premise software.

While all of these points, particularly the third point on pricing, are interesting, we think the situation is a bit more complex. In fact, we at Backupify wrote a whitepaper about this particular topic: “Office 365 vs. Google Apps: Which is right for your business?”.

What it boils down to is that there are different situations in which either solution might be better for a company moving to the cloud, and each solution is superior on different features. Here is a summary on our conclusions found in the whitepaper:

Google Apps wins on:

• Price
• Online collaboration & file storage
• User interface & ease of use

Office 365 wins on:

• Instant messaging, web conferencing, voice chat & voice features
• Intranet integration
• Active directory integration
• Offline support

Google Apps and Office 365 Tie:

• Email & email archiving
• Mobile device support
• System setup & administration

Aside from these feature differentiators, we see the major difference in terms of business process improvement (BPI) vs. business process engineering (BPE). Instead of declaring a definite winner in all cases, we think different companies can appreciate one solution over the other depending on their preferences, reasons for adoption, and business needs.

BPI has to do with tweaking existing business practices to make them more efficient, while BPE involves dissecting a business’ existing workflows and redesigning them from the ground up. We consider Google Apps more of a BPI solution that replaces a current system with a cheaper one, and Office 365 more of a BPE solution that brings new processes to a company.

So as a company considering the cloud, ask yourself: Are you happy with your existing practices but want to transfer them online in order to save money? Or, are you unhappy with your current practices and want a new solution to provide new tools to employees? If the former, then Google Apps is probably your answer. If the latter, then Office 365 with its robust and customizable set of tools that may be worth the extra money.